'Our job is to form a government with Labour'

Green Party leader James Shaw is focused on forming a government with the Labour Party and everything else is just 'noise', he says.

Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King

New Zealand First will head into preliminary talks later in the week with both National and Labour.

The possibility of National and the Greens coming together to form a government has been floated by some commentators.

But Mr Shaw said that speculation was getting a bit boring.

"Our job is to form a government with the Labour Party, that's what I said on election night, that's what I campaigned on for the last 18 months and that's what we are busy working on.

"I said on election night that I think the numbers are there for a new government and that's what we are working on, so everything else frankly is noise and no signal."

Mr Shaw said talk of a 'Teal Deal' is all being fed through proxies and is all PR and fluff, saying there was no substance to it.

Asked whether he believed it was a paid campaign to promote the idea of a National-Greens deal, Mr Shaw said he did not know, and he did not care.

"I'm busy trying to form a government with the Labour Party and presumably with New Zealand First as well, and I said on election night if Bill [English] wants to call, I'm happy to take the call and to have a conversation with him, but he hasn't called, so as far as I'm concerned, everything else is pure speculation."